If you attempt a jump, you get points based on the difficulty of the takeoff and the number of times you rotate in the air. You lose some of those points if there are mistakes on the takeoff, the rotation (e.g., only 3 1/2 when you were trying for 4), or landing. The most severe penalties are if you underrotate by half a revolution or more and also fall. If the jump as a whole is better than just satisfactory, you get extra points."

That pretty well explains what's being rewarded.

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

Look how good I can skate! True, I fell down, but look how good I can skate!! What, you can't see how good my skating is? Read more rules and you will see the light.

What I am objecting to is the view that if you don't like the scoring system the only possible explanation for your dislike is that you are ignorant of how the system works. When people suggest that maybe we should make this or that change, the response is -- "No, no (I must be patient with this sad fellow), we can't do it that way because that is not the way we do it. Don't you understand?" *sigh* We must make a greater effort to educate people."

As for falls...no no no, keep the shiny side down! ...I think the problem is what to do about half-falls, hands down, and saved jumps that disrupt the program as much as a fall does. My suggestion is

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

Look how good I can skate! True, I fell down, but look how good I can skate!! What, you can't see how good my skating is? Read more rules and you will see the light.

What I am objecting to is the view that if you don't like the scoring system the only possible explanation for your dislike is that you are ignorant of how the system works. When people suggest that maybe we should make this or that change, the response is -- "No, no (I must be patient with this sad fellow), we can't do it that way because that is not the way we do it. Don't you understand?" *sigh* We must make a greater effort to educate people."

As for falls...no no no, keep the shiny side down! ...I think the problem is what to do about half-falls, hands down, and saved jumps that disrupt the program as much as a fall does. My suggestion is

I understand all that. But having achieved this understanding, I do not feel educated, I feel bamboozled.

This is a crazy and counter-intuitive system of values. Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall? (That was rhetorical -- I know the answer. Because the CoP says so.)

No, that approach to valuing underrotation has been part of skating judging for far longer than IJS has been around. Probably as long as double jumps have been around. It's just easier to enforce with instant replay. And to quantify with IJS. Judges (and skaters who can rotate their jumps) have been rolling their eyes at "cheated" jumps for decades.

Mathman, look at it this way. One day in the not too far distant future, the outcry and the dwindling audience caused by certain competition outcomes will lead to a change in the IJS, perhaps (hopefully) along the lines you just proposed. Then it will be "your" system that the experts here are patiently explicating.

No, that approach to valuing underrotation has been part of skating judging for far longer than IJS has been around. Probably as long as double jumps have been around. It's just easier to enforce with instant replay. And to quantify with IJS. Judges (and skaters who can rotate their jumps) have been rolling their eyes at "cheated" jumps for decades.

I think that ISU judges have been rolling their eyes at falls for quite some time, too. It was the second part of my sentence that I was hoping for a fuller rationale for:

Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall?

I should have said it this way.Since you get a reduction of base value for under-rotation, why not apply the same principle to a fall?

Originally Posted by SpunSilver

Mathman, look at it this way. One day in the not too far distant future, the outcry and the dwindling audience caused by certain competition outcomes will lead to a change in the IJS, perhaps (hopefully) along the lines you just proposed. Then it will be "your" system that the experts here are patiently explicating.

Patience -- that's the key.

The point behind the joke is well-taken, though. I actually like the CoP OK, despite my grumblings.

It's just that, it seems like the more fans we lose the better pleased we are with our own cleverness. Maybe it's a lost cause already, but I think we are missing opportunities to make the sport more popular with fans who are less involved in the scoring details than we.

Athletes will do whatever the scoring system rewards them for. If we withhold rewards for badly executed elements, the quality of execution will go up.

No it won't. The skaters will do what they did when they got heavily penalized for under-rotated/falls on quad attempts. They won't attempt the element because they can't afford to risk that many points. They will stick to what they can do well which is 3/3's.

When everyone was saying the quad wasn't being sufficiently rewarded and quad attempts were becoming fewer and farther between, everyone said the judging system needed to reward the attempt. I reminded them that the scores were reduced for failed attempts because people didn't like skaters winning with falls. So they stopped rewarding failed attempts and people complained they weren't seeing enough quads and the sport was regressing.

I think that ISU judges have been rolling their eyes at falls for quite some time, too.

Not in the same way, I expect. Especially if a cutting-edge jump is actually rotated (i.e., there's evidence that the skater is physically capable of doing a jump that few or no other skaters have ever done).

If someone someday rotates a quadruple axel, and replay shows that indeed the skater was traveling backward on a back outside edge for a split second before falling, would you not be impressed?

It was the second part of my sentence that I was hoping for a fuller rationale for:

Why is is the base value reduced for under-rotation, but you get full base value for a fall?

I should have said it this way.Since you get a reduction of base value for under-rotation, why not apply the same principle to a fall?

Well, that could be one way to handle it.

But you still need to build in a way to distinguish between not even close vs. landed cleanly and then fell.

It's just that, it seems like the more fans we lose the better pleased we are with our own cleverness. Maybe it's a lost cause already, but I think we are missing opportunities to make the sport more popular with fans who are less involved in the scoring details than we.

Well, I don't think the way to make the sport more popular is to dumb down the values that are intrinsic to the sport.

It's actually probably easier for outsiders watching on TV to understand credit for rotating in the air than to understand credit for deep edges and quiet flow and counterrotated turns. And we certainly don't want to devalue those qualities because they are the essence of what makes figure skating figure skating.

Skater may get credit for BASE value when they fall on a fully rotated jump, but they do get a deduction from that base value for falling, plus the -1 for the fall. Nan Song fell on a fully rotated quad (base value 10.3) and after the mandatory -3 deduction from GOE, he got 7.3 points, about 70% of the value. After the 1.00 deduction for the fall, his net gain was 6.3 points, approximately the points earned for a decently executed 3Z.

If you really gave 0 points for a fall on an element, skaters would become really cautious and attempt only those jumps they routinely land.

No it won't. The skaters will do what they did when they got heavily penalized for under-rotated/falls on quad attempts. They won't attempt the element because they can't afford to risk that many points. They will stick to what they can do well which is 3/3's.

When everyone was saying the quad wasn't being sufficiently rewarded and quad attempts were becoming fewer and farther between, everyone said the judging system needed to reward the attempt. I reminded them that the scores were reduced for failed attempts because people didn't like skaters winning with falls. So they stopped rewarding failed attempts and people complained they weren't seeing enough quads and the sport was regressing.

You can't have it both ways.

I think we need to separate penalties for falls from the attempt to encourage more quad attempts after 2010. There were no changes in the penalties for falls.

The things that were changed were: more lenient penalties for mild under-rotation; higher base vaues; and (later) changes in the GOEs to give llower GOEs for lesser jumps than for quads.

We certainly have seen an increase in the number of quads. Perhaps the reason is a combination of these three rules changes. But the penalties for falls remain the same as always. So I don't see how penalties for falls has played a role in the decrease, then increase, in quad attempts.

If we wanted to ecourage quads even more, we could raise the base value (to 13.5 ), reflecting the extreme difficulty of this element. This would be the natural and straightforward solution. If you want to encourage something, give more points.

Skater may get credit for BASE value when they fall on a fully rotated jump, but they do get a deduction from that base value for falling, plus the -1 for the fall.

Thank you. I always like to refresh myself on the rules.

Nan Song fell on a fully rotated quad (base value 10.3) and after the mandatory -3 deduction from GOE, he got 7.3 points, about 70% of the value. After the 1.00 deduction for the fall, his net gain was 6.3 points, approximately the points earned for a decently executed 3Z.

If you really gave 0 points for a fall on an element, skaters would become really cautious and attempt only those jumps they routinely land.

I don't want to be mean to Nan Song, but I am tempted to say, "poor baby."

This is the world championship.

Chan did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Chan did 4T+3T, full rotations, no fall.
Nanyu did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Takahashi did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Amodio did 4S, full rotations, no fall.
Joubert did 4T, full rottions, no fall.
Ten did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Abbott did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Van der Perren did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Kozuka did 4T+2T, full rotations, no fall.Song did 4T+3T, full rotations, no fall (16.11 points)
Reynolds did 4S, full rotations, no fall.
Reynolds did 4T+2T, full rottionsa, no fall.
Fernandez did 4T, full rotations, no fall.
Fernandez did 4S. ful;l rotations, no fall.
Voronov did 4T, full rotations, no fall.

Do you think that these skaters would have played it safer if there were greater penalties for falls? For sure Nan Song would not have. He got 27.99 points for his two quads (both fully rotated, no falls) at Cup of China and 25.56 for his two quads (both fully rotated, no falls) at Eric Bompard.

Agsin, if you want to encourage quads, raise the base value. That was done in 2011, with results that we are witnessing now. This has nothing to do with penalties for falls, which are the same now as when Buttle won Worlds in 2008 and when Lysacek won the Olympics in 2010.

I think we need to separate penalties for falls from the attempt to encourage more quad attempts after 2010. There were no changes in the penalties for falls.

If by "penalties for falls" you mean the fall deduction, then you need to consider what kind of changes you want to see and how those changes would affect everyone to whom they apply.

Remember, that penalty does not apply only skaters doing quads and earning triple-digit freeskate scores.

If the "problem" that a change to fall penalties is the fact that skaters who fall on quads (or who land quads and fall elsewhere in the program) earn so much from the quads that the fall deduction is negligible, then the additional penalty needs to be designed to apply only to those skaters who earn so much on quads.

A penalty designed to punish quad fallers that also applies to skaters who are struggling to land all their triple -- or double -- jumps would have disproportionate effects on skaters who aren't winning at the lower levels and aren't part of the problem you're trying to solve.

Not in the same way, I expect. Especially if a cutting-edge jump is actually rotated (i.e., there's evidence that the skater is physically capable of doing a jump that few or no other skaters have ever done).

I think this gets at the root of the queetion. No, no, a thousand times no. We should not give points because we "think someone is physically capable of doing something." We should give points only for doing it. (JMO.

If someone someday rotates a quadruple axel, and replay shows that indeed the skater was traveling backward on a back outside edge for a split second before falling, would you not be impressed?

Yes. That would fall into the "75% of base value" category.

But you still need to build in a way to distinguish between not even close vs. landed cleanly and then fell.

yes.. That is where the 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% proposal comes in.

Well, I don't think the way to make the sport more popular is to dumb down the values that are intrinsic to the sport.

To me (an amateur's amateur ) I think the fundamental values of the sport go something like this.

Subbasement. Stand up on your skates. This requires strong ankles, good balance, etc. If you cannot stand up on your skates, you cannot go on to lesson two. (If you fall down, you have not mastered this lesson.)

Basement. Stroking and moving across the ice. (If you fall down while stroking you have not mastered lesson two.)

Floor: Skating on edges. If you cannot doi this without falling down,you have not mastered this level of skating.

Lesson 9 rotational jumps. If you cannot do this without falling, you have (as in the case of every lesson) not mastered this level of skating.

It's actually probably easier for outsiders watching on TV to understand credit for rotating in the air than to understand credit for deep edges and quiet flow and counterrotated turns. And we certainly don't want to devalue those qualities because they are the essence of what makes figure skating figure skating.

I am not sure about that. Compare Patrick Chan's free skate at worlds (many rotations in the air) with his exhibition (deep edges, quiet flow, and counterrotated turns). The LP was (yawn) business as usual, the exhibition was WOW!

We certaqinly don't want to devalue flow, edges, and turns. Those are the second most important thing in skating. (Lesson 3-6). The only thing of more fundamental value is lesson 1 -- stand up on your skates.

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That having been said...thank you for the PM. What you said there totally demolishes my argument. I will try to think of a compromise position.

Even if you are a dictator, you still can't change the fact most people don't give a **** about his skating. You can't 'educate' audience to like his skating because it isn't really 'likeable' . Lame, safe, and forgetable choreography and performance year over year.

^ Some people are not moved by Chan's skating, but check out his exhibition skate at Worlds gala. In that performance he shows total mastery of his medium, jumps just where jumps should be to serve the choreographic vision, and blade to ice skills that are nothing short of astonishing.

I am not a super Chan fan (Van der Perren is my guy), but sometimes you just have to go ahead and tell the truth.

^ Some people are not moved by Chan's skating, but check out his exhibition skate at Worlds gala.

Exhibition? Nobody is going to watch some exhibition program. If I may guess, his exhibition program was the same, old, same 'subtle' performance that 'common people' just can't appreciate as his Canadian defender suggested.